by Jerry eBooks
“I’m nuts about you,” she said. “You know that.”
I nodded. I didn’t argue. Why she wanted me. I didn’t know. Rita probably could have had her pick of dozens of men A big, buxom blonde with a fine-featured face equal to anything you’ll see in cigarette advertisements. If I ever got a notion to take the plunge and get all tangled up with a ball and chain, she would probably be the one. Sometimes I think I was loco for keeping our relationship strictly on a boss-secretary basis.
“I guess I’m just not the marrying type,” I told her. But inwardly, I was putting the proverbial two and two together and getting sixteen. She was practically telling me she thought I was the guilty party. Why? Why? After all, I had no grudge against the babe we had found sprawled out on my bed. But Rita did. As I said, she was insanely jealous of me and I had been making a strong play for the dame. After all, that stuff about not being forced to testify against one’s mate works both ways. “I guess I’ll never marry,” I said as I shook my head again, trying to dislodge the suspicions that were boring from within.
“Maybe you’ll be glad to marry me,” she warned.
THE PARTY was still going full blast when we barged in again and a bunch of muscle detached himself from Aggie Clouser, the hostess, and came charging over. Drunken anger was written in every line of his handsome face. I knew him all right. He was Hal Logan, well-known illustrator who drew cuties for calendars and magazines.
“Where is she?” he demanded of me. “Where is she?”
“Where’s who?” I asked, trying to sound guiltless.
“You know well enough!” Logan sneered. “May—May Musiel. Don’t try to look innocent. I guess you don’t remember. Not much you don’t! You were bragging about how good an artist you are. You said you were going to paint her like she was never painted before.”
“Yes,” Aggie, the hostess cut in, “where is she? You’re a naughty boy. May borrowed a nightgown from me, said she was going to pose for you. What have you done with her?”
I shook my head. There were still cobwebs there. Flashes of the party kept coming back to me. And I wasn’t liking what I remembered. I have a habit of asking pretty girls to pose for me when I drink rum-cokes.
And I was remembering that I had told this kid the number of my apartment.
Besides that, I remembered telling her she could pose for me there—tonight.
Rita stepped between us. “What are you talking about?” she asked Logan. “Rod was with me. After all, he is my fiancé.” That last was a fib. “We were together for the last couple of hours. I didn’t see any May around.” Then she clasped me in her arms and planted a torrid kiss on my lips that might have paralyzed me at any other time. “Don’t worry!” she whispered into my ear. “I’ll be your alibi—to the limit.”
Logan wasn’t satisfied. “I saw you go through the door with May,” he accused me.
“Aw, let’s all have a drink,” Rita interposed. “Little May’ll be back, wagging—well—wagging herself like Mary’s little lamb. How do you know she didn’t go off with somebody else?”
Another bulky figure crowded himself into the scene. Harry Hakins, the writer. “I got May’s coat,” he said. He had a fur coat drapped across his arm. “She didn’t leave without her coat; she’s somewhere in the building. And she’s not going home with anybody but yours truly. I brought her here; I take her home.” Then he glared at me. “I’ll find her and break the neck of the guy who’s got her hidden away.”
“What a way to end a party! Aggie, you better get some more drinks,” Rita cut in again.
Aggie giggled. “Yes, I better.” Then she mouthed a few select cuss words. “May—the little witch. Got every man here worked up. This is the last party of mine she’ll ever come to.”
I groaned inside. How right she was!
“RITA,” I protested, taking a gulp at my drink, “we’re getting nowhere.”
“Easy on that grog!” she ordered. “I don’t want you passing out again. Besides, we are getting somewhere. I see four suspects.
“Four! Who’s the four?”
“You,” she began.
I winced. “Me?”
“Yes, you; and Logan; and Hakins. They’re both nuts about her.”
I shrugged. Still suspecting me, she was. Hell, she was so hard to make understand. But I was thinking, numbly, that it was possible. Maybe I had done the trick during one of those times I blanked out. It was hot in the room but I shivered again.
“Who’s the fourth?” I asked.
She pointed to a hefty bruiser who had a young blonde crowded on a sofa and was making passes at her. “Him.”
“Who’s him?”
“Name’s Garkus. The Silver Terror. A wrestler. He was making a big play for May when you horned in. Aggie told me he’s had a crush on May for some time; she wouldn’t bother with him, though, when she was sober.”.
I took another look at the guy and thought of that moth-eaten gag about a gorilla with a shave. I thought to myself that I must have been well-polluted to take a chance on crossing up an ape like that by making a play for the same babe as he did.
“Hate to meet him in a dark alley,” I commented. “Say, what’s the pitch, anyway? Every guy here’s a big guy. Any one of them’s big enough to wring any dame’s neck. I never saw such a collection of over-sized monkeys.”
“That’s Aggie,” Rita said. “She likes her men big. Maybe because Charlie—that’s her divorced husband—was small. That’s why she told me to bring you. You’re big, too, you know.”
“Fine thing,” I muttered. “Three guys after one dame; any one of them could be guilty.”
“Don’t forget yourself, Buster,” Rita said, mercilessly. “You were after her, too; you make the fourth. Maybe this’ll teach you when to stop the guzzling.”
Minutes later, Rita said: “I’ve got a plan. I’ll go upstairs and call Aggie. I’ll say I’m May and that I’ve been sleeping a load off upstairs. Aggie’s too polluted to recognize voices. I’ll give the number of the apartment where I dumped her. That’ll draw the killer out; he’ll want to go back and finish the job. You watch and see who comes up. That’ll be the guilty party.”
She hoisted her lush figure from the chair and started for the door. I tried to follow but she shoved me, hard, back into my seat. “You stay here!” she ordered. “It’s your only hope.”
I WAITED for the phone to ring. Then, when it did jangle, there was so much noise nobody else heard it.
“Aggie!” I called the hostess. “The phone.”
“Another complaint, I guess,” she giggled. “Such neighbors. They don’t like parties.”
I watched her listen, saw her cradle the receiver.
“Quiet everybody!” she commanded. “Quiet, everybody, please!” She stood up, wobbily, on a chair. “I have an announcement to make. May, our dear May—the little witch—is upstairs in apartment—apartment, oh, let me—think, apartment 1314. All you anxious men can report to same.”
Logan and Hakins were both in my line of vision. Both of them headed for the door.
“What a plan!” I muttered. “Two of them.”
It was a cinch both of them didn’t do it; that was a one-man job. I started for the door after them but somebody else bowled me over. I didn’t see who it was because my head hit the floor and I almost went into another blackout.
When I got to the elevator, Logan and Hakins were still fumbling with the switches. I leaped aboard before the door closed. Then the damn thing wouldn’t start.
“It’s only two flights up!” I told them and ran toward the stairs.
We dashed down the corridor to apartment 1314. The door was open. But there was no May—no corpse on the bed.
Hakins cursed. “There’s nobody here!” he snarled. “Some smart guy pulled a gag.” Then he balled up his hands into fists and swaggered toward me. “I guess it was you,” he accused me. “You’re a smart cookie. I guess it was you.”
“Yeh! The great painter!” L
ogan sneered. He began to move toward me, too.
I saw I was in for a rough time.
But a groan from the other side of the bed brought them to a halt. A woman’s hand clutched the bed clothes from the other side. Rita came up, holding her throat. There were red marks on it.
“The louse!” she said. “He almost did me in, too.”
“Who?” Logan, Hakins and I brought out the word like a chorus.
“Garkus. He just left the room with the—the—May, I mean.”
I knew where Garkus was going. Back to plant the corpse in my apartment again.
“Let’s go!” I shouted at the others and sprinted for the door.
“Don’t! Rod, don’t!” Rita begged. “He’ll kill you, Rod. Wait! Wait! I called the police.”
GARKUS WAS just coming out of my apartment when we reached it. He wheeled and faced us like an animal at bay.
We hesitated for seconds as Garkus glared at us out of red, pig-like eyes.
“Yeh!” he snarled. “I killed her! No babe can two-time me. Walked out on me for somebody else, eh? Well, I showed her. I followed her; I saw what she was gonna do. Well, she’s done for. Just like you mugs—when I’m through with you.”
“He’s drunk,” Logan said.
“A psycho, too!” Hakins cut in.
Hakins had guts. He went after Garkus first. But Garkus clouted him with a forearm like wrestlers do in the ring, and Hakins went sprawling.
Logan and I tore in. I was punching with everything I had and so was Logan. I don’t know what hit me. I think it was the edge of Garkus’ hand. But, if it was, he missed my neck and the hand crashed into my temple—the bad one.
A thousand fiery stars danced in front of my eyes and I tried to fight off darkness as I lifted myself, slowly, “to my feet. Garkus was holding on to Logan and beating his handsome face to a pulp with his fist.
It was no time for polite combat. I aimed a kick at Garkus’ middle with all the force I could muster. My foot thudded home and Garkus grunted in rage and pain. But he held on to Logan.
Hakins was on his feet again and we both crashed into Garkus, trying to break the terrible hold he had on Logan’s neck. We smashed and smashed at Garkus’ face, stumbling over each other sometimes in our anxiety. Garkus’ face was smeared with blood but he didn’t relax his hold on Logan’s throat.
Then Rita came up. She was carrying a vase—a vase so huge I doubt any other woman could even lift it.
“Get back!” I yelled at her. “Are you crazy? He’ll kill you!”
“Oh, yeh!” she said, calmly, with sarcasm in her tone. Garkus tried to duck, but he was too slow. Rita slammed the vase into his skull.
That did the trick. Garkus staggered around—and collapsed.
We were still staring at his prostrate form when the minions of the law arrived.
“Not you too again!” said the nasty one in the derby hat.
Rita did the explaining. She was the only one in condition to explain.
Logan, Hakins and Garkus were carted off to a hospital dispensery. Garkus was safely handcuffed.
“I’ll take care of this one,” Rita told the police, meaning me. “I’m a nurse.”
“Well, don’t leave town—either of you,” said the big cop in the blue serge suit. “They’ll be questions.”
“Don’t worry, officers,” she told them. “This guy won’t leave my sight any more.” Then she turned to me. “Why don’t we get married now, just like they do in the movies?”
DIE TOMORROW, PLEASE!
Buck Gilmore
That did it! Two hundred dollars as a retainer—just as it should be. But there were just two things out of place. The first—why was my fee paid in such an odd way? And two—the big question—why was I paid to find old man Walker’s murderer if he wasn’t even dead yet?
I HAD MADE the grade. My office was in the Graham building on the fifth floor, way back. The glass panel in the door said I did private work. Investigations. I did, when I got the chance, do investigations—but wasn’t getting much to investigate lately. I had a cubbyhole of an office. It wasn’t the type of office that would ordinarily fetch a lieutenant from Homicide up there for advice or help. Not Lieutenant Scott, at any rate. But it happened.
I had just walked into my office and was thinking of maybe someday dusting off the cane chairs I use for my customers, when the door opened and in walked Scott. He looked around, sniffed a couple of times and looked at me kind of hard.
“What do you use for air in here, Kelly?” he asked.
It steamed me for a second. I almost forgot who he was; then I suddenly realized. “You’re very funny, Inspector; a regular killer-diller at 9 a.m.!”
He curled his lip and if I’m not entirely wrong, he sniffed. “Kelly, you know I’m a lieutenant. Keep that in mind! And now, let’s step into your private office. I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah? Sure. What laws did I break now?”
“You tell me, Kelly. What laws did you break?”
Well, that didn’t leave much of an opening, so I pushed open the door of my private office, which was divided from my customers room by a single, thin wall. For Scott’s benefit I yanked open the one and only window and let some of the alloyed air from outside filter through the dust into the office.
I took the chair behind my desk and motioned Lieutenant Scott to the sucker’s stool.
“Kelly, have you got your morning’s mail yet?” he asked.
I looked at him in surprise. “Why, yeah, I guess so. It must be on the table in the outer office. You came in before I could pick it up; I’ll get it.”
“Never mind; I’ll get it,” he said, and went through the door. He was back in a second, riffling through my own assortment of advertisements, bills and the like.
“Hey,” I squeaked, “That’s my mail!”
“Beef to the Captain about me,” he said, without even looking up. Then he seemed to find what he was looking for. The bills, ads, etc., he dropped on the chair. One envelope remained in his hand. He tossed it on the desk in front of me. “Open it,” he said.
“You quite sure it’s all right to open my own mail?”
“I’m laughing, can’t you notice?”
I was a little burned, but I couldn’t forget what he had once done for me a while back when I was looking for a stolen gem. He had notified the insurance company that I had dug it up—thereby assuring the reward money for me. Of course, I really had found it, but some cops overlook the niceties. Scott wasn’t one of them.
So I picked up the envelope and slit it open. I extracted a once-folded sheet of paper and handed it to him. At this he smiled, then laughed, and sat down on top of the bills and ads.
“Oh, you can read it first. I know what it says, anyhow.”
“Clairvoyant,” I muttered, and read. But first I jumped a little before I read, for when I unfolded the sheet, two bills—bank notes, that is—dropped out and fluttered to the desk. Each was a century. One hundred dollars times two.
Scott never batted an eye. He hardly noticed the money. So I read. It was typed in caps: RETAINER FEE ENCLOSED. SOLVE THE DEATH OF WILLIAM R. WALKER. DIED FEB. 25TH. THIS CITY. SEE POLICE FOR DETAILS. P.F.
I HANDED it over and Scott read it quickly. “Seems you’re more important than all Homicide put together,” he observed. “P.F., whoever he is, wants you to solve a murder. What do you know about it?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I said, surprised.
“Well, pick up the money. You’re taking the case.”
I carefully laid the two beauties in my wallet next to a cheap five and a couple of filthy ones. Then I put my wallet back in my hip pocket. All of a sudden it felt nice and warm and cozy, snuggling back there.
Scott grinned again at me. “You look like you never saw a century note before,” he remarked.
“Well, Scottie,” I admitted, “it’s so long between centuries, you know . . .”
“Oh, murder!” he groaned.
I sat
back expectantly. “What’s the advice you wanted?” I finally asked.
“Who said I wanted advice?”
“Nobody.”
“Nobody was right. I want to do this thing the decent way, Kelly. I’m going to ask you—ask you—mind, to go to your filing case and see what you find under ‘F’. Especially, ‘P.F.’ ”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m always willing to help my brothers when they’re decent about it.”
“Brothers!” he flipped out, looking through my dirty window.
“But I’ll tell you right now, that I haven’t anything under ‘F’ to my knowledge. I’ve never had a client whose name began with . . .” as I said this last I had pulled out the drawer marked ‘E to H’ and flipped through the folders. Almost as though a magician had stuck it there, a folder catalogued ‘Farnam, Phyllis’ showed before my startled eyes. “Judas Priest!” I muttered.
“Find something?” Scott asked casually.
“Yeah. Phyllis Farnam. I never saw it before, either.”
“Maybe your stenographer put it there.”
“Oh, sure! My steno isn’t working this week. In fact, I haven’t a steno. I tell you I never saw this before and what’s more I did not put it there!”
“All right,” he said mildly. “What’s in it?”
I opened the folder. Inside was a plain piece of paper with a few typewritten notations on it: Received of Phyllis Farnam today, Feb. 25th, $200 retainer in William R. Walker case. That was all. I read it to Scott, then I thought of something. I took the piece of paper over to my typewriter and inserted it in the machine, pecked out a few keys. The size type was the same.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said slowly, “but I think this was typewritten on my own machine. At least it looks like mine.”
Scott nodded. “Probably was,” he agreed.
“Now look!” I argued. “I’m levelling with you. I didn’t type it; I have no steno who could have typed it. Furthermore, I swear this was not in the files last night. If you had the great big booming business I have, you’d know exactly what clients you’ve had—just like I do.”
“All right, Kelly, all right. Let’s not get our steam up. I believe you.”